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THE GERMANS 
IN THE UNITED STATES 



-A 






The GERMANS 

IN THE 

UNITED STATES 



BY 



ALBERT BERNHARDT FAUST 

Professor or German in Cornell University 



AN ADDRESS 

Deliverea berore the German University League, 
New York, N. Y., Jan. 14, 1916 



'2 . 



Copyright, 1916. applied for b\ German University X,eague. 
All rights reserved. 



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©CI.A431077 

M.4y 16 1916 



Xhe Germans m the United States 



The history of the Germans in the United States is too comprehensive 
a subject for a brief sketch. Yet the bare outlines of a portrait often impress 
the characteristic features more vividly thari color and detail. 

The history of the Germans in this country goes back to the earliest 
colonial period. Recurrent waves in the eighteenth were followed by great 
tides of German immigration in the nineteenth century, and these carried into 
the population of the United States an element second in amount only to the 
contribution of the English stock. 

The year 1 492 has generally been set down as the beginning of American 
history. Better were the selection of the date 1453, for in the taking of 
Constantinople by the Turks we find the causation of the discovery of 
America. The Turks took possession of all the passageways to the Orient, 
and thereby barred Europe from the profitable trade with the Far East. Im- 
mediately there arose the quest of a new passage to India, and this great aim 
lay at the root of all subsequent voyages of discovery. Vienna battled on 
land, Venice and Genoa on the sea, against the invasion of Central Europe 
by the Turks, while Western Europe was free to engage in exploration for a 
western, northwestern and southeastern route to India. Subsequently Central 
Europe was stirred to the depths by the Protestant Reformation; in the seven- 
teenth century it was devastated by religious wars, the destructiveness of which 
was without parallel in history. In the meantime the Western European nations, 
those bordering on the Atlantic seacoast, grasped their opportunity. Spain and 
Portugal founded an empire in the South, France and England in the North 
of the New World. In the struggle for the possession of North America, 
France sent leaders and no men, from Germany there came only colonists, 
England sent both men and leaders, and won the prize. 

The palm for great discoveries must be yielded to the Genoese and 
Portuguese sailors. Italy, as badly decentrahzed as Germany, gained no 
advantage from her great Genoese explorers, Columbus and Cabot, who 
opened a new empire for Spain and England, respectively. Spain also derived 
the benefit from the great voyage of the Portuguese Magellan, whose expedition 
circumnavigated the globe and discovered the westward route to India. Portugal 
gained the glory and reward for opening the southeastern route to the Orient. 
Sailing under his country's flag, Vasco de Gama rounded the Cape of Good 
Hope and secured for Portugal a monopoly of the East Indian trade for nearly 
a century. 

GERMAN COSMOGRAPHERS 

Germany was an inland country, without immediate access to the sea, 
and without trained navigators. Nevertheless the Germans also made a con- 
tribution during this epoch. They were the cosmographers and cartographers 
of Europe. Martin Behaim, one of the inventors of the astrolabe, in 1491-92 
constructed a globe for his native city, Nuremberg, which still records the 
best of the world's geographical knowledge of that date, and proves his faith 
in the spherical shape of the earth before the discovery of America. Greater 
than Behaim was Mercator (Gerhard Kremer), of German stock, the inventor 
of the Mercator system of projection, taking account of the curvature of the 
earth's surface in the preparation of nautical maps, an indispensable aid to 



mariners. The man who first used the name America in a printed work was 
Martin Waldseemiiller, born in Freiburg about 1480. In 1507 he published 
his Cosmographiae Introductio, in which he gives an account of the voyages 
of Amerigo Vespucci, and suggests that the new continent be named after 
him. The best maps and globes were made by German cartographers and 
printers; they aided navigation and disseminated knowledge of the newly 
discovered lands. 

TWO GERMAN GOVERNORS IN COLONIAL PERIOD 

In all of the earliest colonies along the Atlantic coast there were sporadic 
cases of German settlers, especially in New Amsterdam and New Sweden, 
subsequently part of Pennsylvania. In the Dutch settlement of New Amster- 
dam there were two German leaders second to none in shaping the destinies of 
the colony, Peter Minnewit, the founder and first governor, and Jacob Leisler, 
the first governor by choice of the popular party in the city of New York. 

Peter Minnewit was born at Wesel-on-the-Rhine, was appointed governor 
of New Netherlands by the Dutch West India Company, and bought the 
island of Manhattan from the Indiarfs in 1 626. Under his leadership the 
colony became the successful rival of New England in the remunerative fur 
trade. Shipbuilding was carried on, and in 1631 the A^en; N ebherland was 
launched, one of the largest ships afloat at the time. On his departure in 
1 632 Minnewit left the colony in a most prosperous condition. In Holland 
the returning governor was made the scapegoat for the evils of the patroon 
system, he left deeply mortified by the ingratitude of the Dutch West India 
Company, and offered his services to the ruler of Sweden. The result was 
that Minnewit became the second time the founder of an important colony. 
He arrived in Delaware Bay in April, 1 638, and built Fort Christina near 
the present site of Wilmington. New Sweden rapidly grew in trade and 
colonists, and for a long time preserved its independence. Minnewit died at 
his post in 1 641 . 

Not quite fifty years later there lived another leader of men, Jacob 
Leisler, born in Frankfort-on-the-Main, appearing in New York in 1 660. He 
was a great trader, and amassed wealth through the boldness and genius of his 
ventures. Though allied by marriage with the Dutch aristocracy, he remained 
democratic at heart, and representative of the middle-class people, who trusted 
his simple honesty, admired his rugged manhood, and honored his public spirit 
and liberality. In 1 689, when the news arrived of the landing of William 
of Orange in England, a popular revolt started in New York against the 
hated rule of Nicholson and his party. The revolution placed Leisler at the 
head and made him provisional governor. The administration of Leisler is 
truly memorable in colonial history because it was he who was the first to call 
together a congress of the American colonies for co-operative action. In 
April, 1 690, he invited the governors of Massachusetts, Plymouth, East and 
West Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia to a common council in 
New York. This meeting of May 1 , 1 690, was the first congress of Ameri- 
can colonies convened independently of the mother country. Invasion by the 
French and Indians threatened from without, and England, in the throes of 
revolution, could not be relied on for aid. In this congress of May 1 , 1 690, 
the first step toward co-operation and independence was taken in the history 
of the American colonies; this was the forerunner of the American Continental 
Congress, and to Leisler belongs the great honor of having convened it. The 
subsequent triumph of Leisler's enemies, the re-establishment of a reactionary 



government by Colonel Sloughter and the martyrdom of Leisler, who was 
executed with his son-in-law, Milborne, on the trumped-up charge of high 
treason, furnish a dark background which but dignifies the brilliant achieve- 
ment of the first people's governor of New York. 

THE SETTLEMENT OF GERMANTOWN 

The close of the seventeenth century saw the establishment of the first 
German colony on American soil. This was the settlement of Germantown, 
Pennsylvania, in 1 683, under the leadership of Franz Daniel Pastorius. 
October 6 was the date of the arrival of the ship Concord, the Ma^^flotver 
of the German settlers in this country. Philadelphia had been founded but 
two years before this, and the liberal policy of WilHam Penn attracted this 
small band of religious refugees to Penn's colony. These first German settlers 
were mostly Mennonites and Quakers from Crefeld, and weavers by trade. 
The scholar Pastorius was their guiding spirit, though his Latin books were 
not as good an equipment as the looms of the Crefelders. Farming and 
manufacturing became the occupations of the Germantown settlement and they 
remained so in all generations to come.* A minimum of time was given to 
public life and it became necessary to impose a fine for the refusal to accept 
public office after election. For better or for worse Germantown also furnished 
the example for the Germans in American politics. The German Quakers of 
Germantown immortalized themselves by their protest against slavery in 1 688, 
the first formal action ever taken against the barter in human flesh within the 
boundaries of the United States. Another deed of imperishable fame was 
the printing of the German Lutheran Bible in the German language by 
Christopher Sauer, of Germantown, in 1 743, the first complete Bible printed 
in any language within the American colonies, 

GERMAN SETTLEMENTS BEFORE THE REVOLUTIONARY 

WAR 

The great waves of German immigration began to rise in the second 
decade of the eighteenth century, and they flowed and ebbed alternately until the 
period of the Revolutionary War. Many refugees from religious persecution 
appeared, but the great bulk were induced to emigrate for economic reasons. 
The latter is the great principle that governs emigration at all times and for 
all peoples ; on the one side poor economic conditions at home sometimes 
aggravated to desperation, and on the other better economic conditions or at 
least the hope of improving them. Favorable reports from American colonists 
went back to Germany and whetted the appetite for emigration to such an 
extent that some home governments felt it necessary to confiscate favorable 
letters with the same eagerness as if they were emigrant agents. The region 
of Germany which during the eighteenth century furnished the largest immigra- 
tion to the United States was the upper Rhine territory, going southward from 
the entry of the Main into the Rhine and extending into the mountains of 
Switzerland. The Rhenish Palatinate, Southwestern Germany and German 
Switzerland were sections suffering from wars, failure of crops and over- 
population, causes which produced a continuous flow of immigration to what 
was then known as the West India Islands, the island of Pennsylvania and 
the island of Carolina figurmg most prominently in the popular imagination. 

*For a good sketch of the Germantown settlement, cf. Seidensticker, O.: Bilder aus der 
deutsch-pennsylvanisclten Geschichte; or Pennypacker, S. W. : The Settlement of Germantown. 
For the history of the Pennsylvania Germans, cf. Kuhns, O. : The German and Swiss 
Settlements of Colonial Pennsylvania. 



Where did they settle? Did they remain in the seaport towns? Rarely, 
or not long. Most of them were skilled cultivators of the soil, whose ambition 
it was to own land and build upon it a home of their own. If they were 
tradesmen, expert in some handicraft, they might tarry longer in the seaport to 
ply their trade, but only long enough to enable them to save enough money to 
buy land. Where could land be bought cheaply and in sufficient quantity to 
make a farm pay? The farms around the seaports and for some distance 
inland were very soon bought up by older settlers who had accumulated larger 
means and preferred the security of the seaboard area. The new colonists 
had to try their fortunes farther westward if they wished to secure land within 
their means. As a result of this we find the larger number of Enghsh and 
Dutch settlers on the seacoast, while the German, Irish, Scotch and Huguenot 
settlers went to the frontier as pioneers. Their colonies became buffers against 
the Indians, and thereby a protection for the coast settlements. It is most 
remarkable to see how largely the frontier settlements about the period of the 
Revolutionary War were inhabited by German and Irish immigrants, who had 
come without means. If we draw a frontier line for the year 1 775 from 
outpost to outpost in the then westernmost sections we will find that the 
German settlers had a very large share in the defense of the frontier line 
during the eighteenth century.* 

Even at the extremities of the Hne in Maine and Georgia there were 
German settlers. In Maine, at Waldoboro, a German colony was established 
in 1742 on Broad Bay; in Georgia existed the prosperous settlement of the 
Salzburgers. These German Lutherans, a portion of those exiled in 1731 by 
the fanatical zeal of Archbishop Leopold, came to Georgia under the auspices 
of General Oglethorpe in 1 734, the year after he had founded Savannah. 
The Salzburgers had excellent leaders in their preachers, Bolzius and Gronau, 
and in Baron von Reck, who laid out the first settlement at Ebenezer. 
Numerous were the settlements of the Salzburgers in the district of the 
Savannah River, which at that time was the only inhabited portion of Georgia. 

Following the frontier line in 1 775 we find that the farthermost west- 
ward colonists in New York State were the German settlers in the Mohawk 
Valley, a section which was exposed as no other pioneer territory to the 
incursions of the most warhke of all the Indian tribes, the Six Nations. The 
German settlers of Schoharie* had their share of the burden to bear, being 
also exposed on their western border. In the State of Pennsylvania we find 
that the midland and southwestern sections were occupied by German settlers, 
who made this territory famous for agricultural wealth. At the lime of the 
Revolution they numbered one-third of the population of the Commonwealth 
of Pennsylvania. From Lancaster county they crossed the Susquehanna 
River, settled York and Adams counties, then they trekked southward, follow- 
ing the base of the mountains and settled Frederick county, Maryland. In 
this State they also went westward into Washington and eastward into Carroll 
county. They went still farther southward, crossed the Cumberland River 
and followed the Shenandoah up through the Valley of Virginia. The 
Shenandoah Valley, as far as Augusta county, became as German as Lan- 
caster county, Pennsylvania, and was its rival in agricultural prosperity. The 



*Cf. The German Element in the United States, bv A. B. Faust (2 vols. Boston, 
Houghton-Mifflin Co., 1909). See Vol. I, Chapter X, pp. 263-268. 

*The romantic history of the settlement of Schoharie county by Germans from the 
Palatinate can be found in: Cobb, S. H., The Story of the Palatines; or The German 
Element in the United States, Vol I, Chapter IV. 



Valley of Virginia became the great avenue to the New Southwest. The 
southern slope of the Shenandoah Valley was occupied more largely by Irish 
settlers, but in course of time Germans intermingled with them and took part 
in the settlement of Kentucky and Tennessee as soon as the gateways were 
opened by the Indian Wars during and following the Revolution. 

In North Carolina the westerly counties then on the frontier along the 
Yadkin and Catawba Rivers were inhabited by Germans and Irish as neigh- 
bors in nearly equal numbers. The Germans had come all the way from 
Pennsylvania. It was the custom to harvest a summer crop and sell it along 
with the farm, to load one's possessions on a big wagon and start out with 
family and cattle in the fall of the year. Autumn and winter months were 
devoted entirely to the long trip from Pennsylvania to Maryland, then up 
the Shenandoah Valley and down part way on the other side to the head- 
waters of one or other of the Virginia rivers, which would open the way toward 
North Carolina. The example was given by the German Moravians, who 
about 1 750 settled a large tract in the Wachovia district of North Carolina, in 
what is now Forsyth and Stokes counties. This settlement, Winston-Salem, still 
exists and is one of the most quaint and prosperous agricultural districts in 
the Carolinas. 

In South Carolina the settlement of the western areas was not made 
from the north, but from the seacoast, from the seaport Charleston. There 
was in South Carolina a promised land for German settlers just as there had 
been one in New York State. Tradition had it that the generous Queen 
Anne had set aside Schoharie county in New York for the thousands of 
Palatines who had come to England about 1710, pleading to be sent as 
colonists to the American settlements. Similarly Queen Anne was said to 
have designed the then western section of South Carolina for settlement by 
the Palatines. Whether there was any truth in the traditions or not, it is 
a well-established fact that the bulk of the early settlers in the Saxe-Gotha 
district, then the western, now the central, section of South Carolina, were 
immigrants of German blood who settled there from about I 735 on. The 
records of fifteen Protestant churches, most of them German Lutheran, several 
German Reformed, furnish conclusive evidence of the massing of German settlers 
in Saxe-Gotha, at present the counties of Orangeburg and Lexington in South 
Carolina. 

While the preceding paragraphs have made clear the great share of the 
German element in the defense and advance of the American frontier in the 
eighteenth century, it must not be forgotten that the Germans also left an 
impress on other areas. They had distinctive German settlements on the coast 
line, such as Waldoboro in Maine, Newburgh in New York, Newbern in 
North Carolina, Germantown near Philadelphia, and a strong nucleus of 
settlers in the seaport cities of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and 
Charleston. 

THE GERMAN FARMER 

The greatest value, however, of the German immigrant was his service 
as a farmer in the midland areas. No one has expressed greater appreciation 
of this fact than Dr. Benjamin Rush, the most eminent American physician 
of his day and signer of the Declaration of Independence. In an essay on 
the manners and customs of the Pennsylvania Germans (1789), he points out 
wherein the German farmer surpasses all his rivals. This demonstrates that they 



were experts in their branch; that they were industrious and economical; that 
they knew good land when they saw it and kept possession of it when they 
got it; that they rotated their crops, took good care of their stock and were 
not afraid of hard work. Dr. Rush emphasizes the importance of their 
success in the economic foundation of the Commonweahh of Pennsylvania. 
He said it made possible the establishment and successful operation of the 
Bank of North America, the original financial backbone of the colonies. 

Similarly the German immigrants of the nineteenth century have kept 
alive the good reputation of the German farmer in the United States. At 
three points principally did they push the frontier line to the westward — in 
Missouri, Texas and Wisconsin. The Middle West — Ohio, Indiana and 
Illinois — also received a large share of the German immigration of the nineteenth 
century, these in addition to the descendants of eighteenth century settlers who 
migrated westward from Pennsylvania and the Carolinas. Statistics show that the 
English and Scandinavian farmers are also prosperous and skillful, but there has 
been no stock as the Germans, who for a period of more than two centuries have 
consistently maintained the reputation of being the most successful farmers 
in the United States. Upon the industrious and conscientious work of the 
German small farmer depends in very large measure the wealth of the great 
Middle West; the great grain crops of the country, year after year, form the 
backbone of American financial prosperity. 

BLOOD, BRAWN, BRAIN AND BUOYANCY 

When asked to define the German contribution to the history of the Ameri- 
can people in a few words, I have often given the reply, the Germans have 
contributed blood, brawn, brain and buoyancy to the make-up of the American 
people. Let us take up each of these five contributions separately. 

If we attack the difficult problem of what amount each national stock 

has contributed to the blood of the American people, including in this estimate 
not only the recent immigrations, but also those of the nineteenth, eighteenth 
and seventeenth centuries, we get results* somewhat as follows: 

PER CENT. 

Total white population in the United States in I 91 .. 81 ,731 ,957 100.0 
English (including Scotch and Welsh, about 

3,000,000) 24,750,000 30.3 

German (including Dutch, about 3,000,000) 21,600.000 26.4 

Irish (including Catholic and Protestant) 15,250,000 18.6 

Scandinavian (Swedish, Norwegian. Danish) 4,000,000 4.9 

French (including Canadian French) 4,000,000 4.9 

Itahan (mostly recent immigration) 2,500.000 3.1 

Hebrew (one-half recent, Russian) 2,500,000 3.1 

Spanish (mostly Spanish-American) 2,000,000 2.5 

Austrian Slavs (Bohemian, Moravian, Slovac, etc.).. 2,000,000 2.5 

Russian Slavs and Finns (one-tenth) 1,000,000 1.2 

Poles (many early in nineteenth century) 1 .000,000 1 .2 

Magyars (recent immigration) 700,000 .8 

Balkan Peninsula 250,000 .3 

All others** 181,957 .2 



*For the method by which these results are obtained, see Tlie German Element in the 
United States, Vol. II, "Chapter I. 

**This does not, of course, include the colored population, which in 1910 was as 
follows: Negroes, 9,827,763; Indians, 265,683; Chinese, 71,531; Japanese, 72,157. 



This table shows that the German contribution in blood is second only 
to the English, and is but a small percentage below it. The figure 2 1 ,600,000, 
or 26.4%, represents the amount of German blood in the total white popula- 
tion, over against the largest contribution, that of the English stock repre- 
sented by the figure 24,750,000, or 30.3%. and the Irish 15,250,000, or 
18.6% of the total white population of the United States. In the case of 
those national stocks that began coming to America in the eighteenth century 
or before, their blood is diffused among a larger number of people than the 
figures indicate. Perhaps no person whose ancestors came over a hundred 
years ago has in his veins the blood of one national stock alone; the typical 
American is a blend, part EngHsh, German or Irish, a fraction French or 
Spanish. In the table above, the units represent pure blood, the calculation 
attempting to reduce the divided blood to units of full or pure blood, in order 
to represent mathematically the contribution of each. In reality all of the older 
stocks, as the English, German, Irish and French, are probably diffused through 
twice the number of persons represented by the figures above, while the recent 
immigrations, as the Itahan, Hungarian, Russian, etc., are mostly of unmixed 
blood and in their cases the figure representing their contribution corresponds 
closely to the number of persons in the United States who have any of their 
blood m their veins. 

GERMANS IN THE WARS OF THE UNITED STATES 

Under the head of the contribution of blood should be included also 
the blood spilt on the battlefields of the United States. Monographs'^ that 
have been written on the subject show how lavishly German blood has been 
shed in defense of American liberty and union. The historian Bancroft esti- 
mated the German contingent in the patriot armies of the Revolutionary War 
as in excess of their ratio in the population. The statistics of Gould on the 
Civil War prove that the German volunteering exceeded in proportion that of 
the native and also that of the other foreign elements. 

GERMANS IN THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR 

At the very opening of the Revolutionary War a German regiment was 
established by vote of the Continental Congress in 1 776, which was recruited 
in Pennsylvania and Maryland, and which distinguished itself in the New Jersey 
campaign and in Sullivan's expedition against the Indians. Ottendorff's troop 
and Schott's dragoons performed valiant service in Armand's Legion. Van 
Heer's independent troop of horse did bodyguard service to the Commander- 
in-Chief. The best strategist after Washington, General Greene, had under 
him two reliable brigade commanders of German blood, Muhlenberg and 
Weedon (Wieden), whose regiments were composed mostly of Germans, from 
the Valley of Virginia and elsewhere. At Brandywine Miihlenberg's brigade 
was used by General Greene in his daring maneuver that covered the retreat 
of the American army and prevented its annihilation by Cornwallis. At 
Germantown Miihlenberg's brilliant bayonet attack pierced the enemy's right 
wing. Peter Miihlenberg, whost statue was sent to the capitol at Washington 
as Pennsylvania's representative, was the son of the founder of the German 
Lutheran church in America, and brother of Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg, 
first Speaker of the House of Representatives. The fighting general, John 



*Cf. Rosengarten, J. G. : The German Soldier in the IVars of the United States. 
Philadelphia (Lippincott), 1890. 

Kaufman, W. : Die Deutschen im avierikanischcn Biirgerkriege. IMiinchen u. Berlin, 1911. 



Kalb (Baron de Kalb), sacrificed his life in the battle of Camden, heroically 
stemming the tide of defeat brought on by General Gates' blunders. A cousin 
of General Kalb was in the regiment of Prinz Wilhelm of Zweibriicken, one 
of several German regiments included in the French auxihary forces at York- 
town. Captain Henry Kalb was the first to enter the redoubt in the storming 
of one of the two forts which closed the siege of Yorktown, forcing the enemy 
to capitulate. In the North General Herkimer led the German farmers 
of the Mohawk Valley against the invading army of St. Leger, and in the 
battle of Oriskany, in which he was mortally wounded, won the victory which 
cut off Burgoyne from supplies and reHef from the west. In the roll of 
honor there should not be forgotten Christopher Ludwig, the German baker 
of Philadelphia, whom Congress appointed director of baking for the entire 
army. He was an original anti-grafter, Washington's "honest friend." One 
hundred pounds of bread were asked of him for every hundred pounds of 
flour. "No," said he, "Christopher Ludwig does not wish to become rich 
by the war. He has enough. Out of one hundred pounds of flour one gets 
one hundred and thirty-five pounds of bread, and so many will I give." All 
his predecessors had taken advantage of the ignorance of the legislators, who 
did not know that the added water increases the weight considerably. 

But outclassing all of these and many more German officers who fought 
in the cause of American independence, there was one who stands out pre- 
eminently, taking rank immediately after Washington and Greene in individual 
service to the patriot cause. This was General Frederick William Steuben, 
drill master of the American forces. It is no exaggeration to say, that without 
the discipHne and economy, without the knowledge of the elements of drill, 
maneuvering and campaigning which Steuben infused into the patriot militia, 
American independence could not have been won. Our school histories praise 
highly the aid received from Lafayette, and rightly so, for gallant youth he 
was, vsath generous heart and open purse, yet he came in 1 777 with the 
mexperience of twenty winters. America gave him as much as she received, 
the great chance of making a man and hero of himself under exceptionally 
favorable circumstances. Baron Steuben, on the other hand, gave more than he 
received. He, a veteran of the Seven Years' War, a favorite pupil of Frederick 
the Great, the foremost general of the age, brought over the principles of Prussian 
military science and appHed them to American conditions. At Valley forge the 
Inspector-General prepared the way for future victories, in Virginia he recruited 
and drilled the forces that decided the Southern campaign. After the war Steuben 
remained in the country whose freedom he had helped to win, and identified 
himself with all its military interests, the founding of West Point, the fortification 
of New York City, the v^Triting and rewriting of the "Regulations for the Order 
and DiscipHne of the Troops of the United States," commonly called Steuben's 
Manual, which remained the guide for American military discipline for more 
than a generation. 

GERMANS IN THE CIVIL WAR 

In the Civil War the number of volunteers in the Union army who 
were born in Germany exceeded 200,000. Gould, in his general summaries 
of enlistments, cuts down the number to 1 76,897, which nevertheless compares 
most favorably with his estimate of other enlistments, the Irish 1 44,22 1 and 
the English 45,508. When we remember that the number of persons of 
both sexes born in Germany residing in the United States in 1 860 was only 
1,276,075, and compare with this figure an enlistment of 200,000, we reahze 



that the percentage of German volunteering was one of the largest recorded in 
history. True it is that 1 00,000 German immigrants arrived in the United 
States between 1860-1864, and that a very large number of these enlisted in 
the Union army, but this fact does not alter appreciably the percentage of 
enlistment, for more than 72,000 of the persons born in Germany recorded in 
the census of 1 860 lived in the Southern Stales. 

In his book on the Germans in the Civil War, Kaufmann gives a list 
of 500 German officers who were in the Union service. With few exceptions 
the names included are only those of officers of the rank of major and above. 
Ninety-six were killed in battle, nine reached the rank of major-general, viz.: 
Osterhaus, Sigel, Schurz, Willich, Steinwehr, Stahel, Weitzel, Kautz and 
F. S. Salomon. Some of the noteworthy events participated in by German 
troops and commanders were Sigel's campaigns in Missouri ; the resistance at 
great sacrifice by the XI Corps under Steinwehr and Schurz to the greater 
forces of the Confederates, on the first and second days of the battle of 
Gettysburg, enabling the Union forces to choose favorable positions; the bril- 
fiant work of the batteries of Dilger and Buschbek at the surprise attack by 
Stonewall Jackson at the battle of Chancellorsville ; the offensive taken in the 
battle of Lookout Mountain and the storming of Missionary Ridge participated 
in by the divisions of Osterhaus, Willich, Steinwehr and Schurz; the work of 
Osterhaus at Pea Ridge, and his leadership of the fifteenth corps in Sherman's 
march to the sea. Whether authentic or not, there is truth in the remark 
attributed to Robert E. Lee: "Take the Dutch out of the Union army and we 
could whip the Yankees easily." 

No account has been taken above of the part taken in the wars of the 
United States by men of German descent; a few names must here suffice: 
General Strieker, defender of Baltimore in the war of 1812; General Quitman 
one of the principal fighting generals of the Mexican War; General Custer, 
the dashing cavalry leader of the Civil War and famous Indian fighter; 
Admiral Schley, commander of the fleet that destroyed Cervera's squadron in 
the Spanish War. 

GERMANS IN THE INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE 

UNITED STATES 

Brawn and brain have been contributed by the German immigrant, and 
he never spared either, when confronted with his share in the great task of 
wresting the soil from wild nature and preparing it for cultivation, or developing 
the resources and building up the industries of the country. Physically the 
German has a stocky frame of great muscular strength. The native type is more 
slender, with longer limbs and greater height. The effect of interminghng is a 
better physique, with a more harmonious development of height and strength. 

In the industrial history of the United States the Germans of the nine- 
teenth century outclassed all rivals in the branches that required technical 
training. The earlier existence in Germany of schools for training in technical 
branches undoubtedly was the principal cause. We find the German element 
in the United States predominant in the engineering branches, in chemical 
industries, the manufacture of musical and optical instruments, the preparation 
of food products, as sugar and salt, cereals, flour and starch, also in canning, 
preserving, milling and brewing. They have been prominent in inventing 
agricultural machinery, in the manufacture of wagons, electric and railway 
cars; from the eighteenth century on they have been identified with the growth 



of the iron and steel industries and glass manufacture; they have been prominent 
in printing, and have had a monopoly in the art of lithography.* The German 
Jew has made certain branches of business wellnigh his own, e. g., the 
clothing trade and the department stores. His organizing power is as prominent 
in finance and big business as it is in scientific charities. 

In the engineering branches especially, the Germans had had at home 
first-class engineering colleges long before any were founded in America. We 
therefore find that for a long time the greatest bridges in the country were 
built by Germans. John A. Roebling established the suspension bridge as the 
leading type for great spans over large rivers, while Charles C. Schneider 
demonstrated with his cantilever bridge over the Niagara River that the 
cantilever type was the better for heavy railway traffic. Roebling's famous 
Brooklyn Bridge, at its completion the wonder of the world, has done greater 
service and has oftener been overtaxed than any bridge in existence. The 
wire of the cables of his bridges was always manufactured in his own factory. 
The only peer of Edison in electrical engineering is Charles P. Steinmetz, and 
in mining engineering the name of Adolf Sutro stands out as the constructor 
of the great tunnel under Virginia City in Nevada. Albert Fink, expert rail- 
way engineer, was the originator of through traffic in freight and passenger 
service, and Count Zeppelin made his first experiments in military aviation in 
this country during the Civil War. In industrial pursuits as well as in the 
professions the Germans of the nineteenth century stood for training in opposi- 
tion to quackery. When standards were those of the pioneer, the husband 
might build his house with his own hands, be a successful farmer and cattle 
raiser, and besides be his own physician, lawyer and legislator. With the 
increase of population and the accumulation of more than the bare necessities 
of existence came a higher standard of living and a higher ideal of accomplish- 
ment. Competition brought about improvement, higher effort alone was crowned 
with success, and this was dependent upon training. In this emphasis upon 
training the German in the United States has stood in opposition to the old 
pioneer tradition of the jack-of-all-trades, and the adventurer in business who 
seeks to make money rather than to develop the industry in which he is engaged. 

EDUCATIONAL INFLUENCE 

A further instance of a German intellectual influence is found in the 
department of education. The lowest and the highest rung of the ladder in 
the American educational system, the kindergarten and the university, are 
German importations. These the native American brought over himself, just 
as he found his model for secondary school and college in England. The 
secondary school only at one epoch felt German influence, when Horace Mann 
reported favorably on the Prussian school system (1843), and established 
the normal or training school for teachers. The kindergarten is the work of 
the German, Friedrich Frobel, lover of the child, and was introduced in many 
places in the United States by both the German and the native element. 

But in the department of higher education German influence has been 
paramount throughout the nineteenth century, beginning with George Ticknor 
and Edward Everett who were students at Gottingen from 1815-17. They 
were the pioneers in the migration of American students to German universities, 
which up to 1 860 included two hundred and twenty-five of the brightest 



*For an account in detail of the German participation in the industrial development of 
the United States, with names and historical data, see The German Element in the United 
States, Vol. II, Chapters 2 and 3. 



young minds in America. One hundred and thirty-seven of these became 
professors at American colleges, returning home aglow with a new inspiration, 
and kindling enthusiasm for high ideals of scholarship. The fervent aspiration 
of German romanticism found a fruitful soil in the idealism of young America. 
The graduate department of the American university is modeled closely 
after the German pattern, both in the high requirements for admission, and in 
ihe methods of work. The principal of research work, of independent investi- 
gation after the German university plan, with the teacher as co-worker with 
the student in the advancement of science, was first introduced by Johns 
Hopkins University at its foundation in 1876. The work done there in the 
graduate department stimulated all of the greater institutions of learning to 
similar efforts, and the graduate departments became the crown of the equip- 
ment of all leading American universities. The state university idea, begun at 
Ann Arbor, Michigan, also sailed under the star of German influence. The 
book of the Frenchman, Victor Cousin, a report on the Prussian state school 
and university system, was accepted as a guide by the founders of the state 
school system of Michigan, which in turn became a standard for other states 
of the West. Higher education in technical branches received a new start 
with the foundation of Cornell University in 1 868, which through its first 
president, Andrew D. White, gave German ideas an open door. 

BUOYANCY 

A fourth contribution of the German element to the life of the American 
people might be called buoyancy. This quality in the German mind should 
not be underestimated, for it relieves tension and overstrain, opens the path 
to the joy of Hving, and in its higher phases creates the love of art and music. 
European travelers in the United States during the eighteenth and a large part 
of the nineteenth century were appalled by the gravity, melancholy, and mono- 
tony of American social life. Mrs. Trollope, returning from her residence in 
America (1827-31) wrote that she had never seen a population so totally 
divested of gayety, and she quotes a German woman as saying: "They do not 
love music; and they never amuse themselves; and their hearts are not warm, 
at least they seem not so to strangers; and they have no ease, no forgetfulness 
of business and of care, no not for a moment." The Germans as a rule 
brought with them a large capacity for the enjoyment of life; they had their 
agricultural fairs and frolics in the eighteenth century and expanded them to 
festivals on a larger scale as time went on; they founded social clubs most 
varied in kind, singing societies, dramatic clubs for their own entertainment. 
They introduced the Christmas tree, and made Christmas the principal festival 
of the year, they gave delight to the young with a flood of toys, designed with 
consummate skill and fascinating workmanship, from the indestructible picture- 
book to the doll with movable joints, from the tin soldier to the self-propelling 
man-of-war, from Noah's ark to the Teddy bear (an invention of Margarete 
Steiff , of Wiirtemberg) . 

GERMAN MUSIC 

The most effective means of diverting men's minds from their narrow 
material interests and leading them to appreciate higher values, is the cultivation 
of music. If the Germans had done nothing more than to have brought music 
to America, their coming for this alone would be deserving of grateful record 
in American annals. During the eighteenth century the Puritans in New 
England, and the Quakers in Pennsylvania, checked the development of music. 



Contemporaneously the German sectarians of Pennsylvania, though austere in 
their mode of life, fondly practised the art of choral singing. The mixed 
chorus of the brothers and sisters of Ephrata, and the music schools of the 
Moravians at Bethlehem invoked admiration, and fostered the sacred flame, 
Philadelphia with its large German population early began the cultivation of 
music and gave the first ambitious program of classical music on May 4, 1 786. 
Boston made a good move with the founding of the Handel and Haydn 
Society in 1815. Real progress was made by this association when in 1854 a 
professional conductor was called, the great German orchestral drill master, 
Carl Zerrahn. Gottlieb Graupner earlier had won the distinction of being the 
father of orchestral music in Boston. New York began to show its mettle 
about the middle of the century with the foundation of The Philharmonic 
Society, and its rival, the famous Germania Orchestra, boldly began to make 
tours, giving orchestral concerts in many of the eastern cities between 1 848 
and 1854. Then came a period of great German masters, Theodore Thomas, 
Anton Seidl, Leopold Damrosch, Wilhelm Gericke, Emil Paur, and many 
others, who developed musical taste for the symphony, and the grand opera. 
From Yankee Doodle to Parsifal in seventy years has been the record of 
German influence upon musical appreciation in the United States. In vocal 
music the efforts of the Mannerchore must not be overlooked. More influential 
than they were the conservatories and private music schools, very frequently 
founded or directed by German professors of music. The American poet 
Lanier, expressed the thought that nothing is so essential to the happiness of 
home as music. The man that brought this cheering and uplifting influence 
into the American home was the humble German music master. With un- 
flinching lideHty to his caUing, without the hope of name or fame, he engaged 
in a struggle comparable to that of the frontiersman who battled with ax and 
rifle against forest and savage in the vanguard of civilization. 



GERMANS IN AMERICAN POLITICS 

In conclusion a word should be said about the Germans in American 
politics. The common impression concerning them is, that their influence in 
this department has not been commensurate with their numbers. Though this 
must be admitted at the start, their influence for good in American politics has 
been very much greater than has generally been supposed. The Germans never 
entered politics for a livelihood. From the earliest days they came as farmers, 
tradesmen, mechanics, business or professional men, and applied themselves 
diligently to their vocations with the determination to succeed. Their strongly 
developed practical sense showed them that the professional politican. ousted 
from office whenever his party lost in the election, was engaged in a very 
unsafe and in the long run an unprofitable business. Their own particular 
trades for which they had been trained, were unquestionably a more secure 
means of seeking a livelihood. They were far removed from placing a high 
estimate upon a public career, they saw only the manipulations, briberies and 
corrupt practises of the political game. They therefore looked upon the public 
career as something unclean and much to be shunned, and the great mass of 
Germans still hold this view at the present day. 

However, when in the history of the country there existed a real and 
important political issue, the German voter did not shirk. He formed his 
opinion about the situation, and acted in accordance with it. As he did not want 
anything for himself, no public office or benefits, he voted independently of 



party and persons. This was true even in the days of Benjamin FrankHn, who 
recognizing that he had lost control of the German vote, fell into a rage 
because he feared it, and uttered threats. If the word hyphenates had been 
invented at that time, he would have found much satisfaction in it, Franklin 
did not understand the Germans, for they were independent voters, and Franklin 
considered that un-American. In the nineteenth century some of the most 
important issues that made for betterment in American politics, were the abolition 
of slavery, the reform of the civil service, the question of sound money, muni- 
cipal and party reform. In all of these the Germans took a prominent part, 
while they neglected unduly the seeking of the influence that comes through the 
holding of public positions. But in this unselfishness lay their power for good, 
their votes could not be bought, nor could they be influenced by threats, cajolery, 
slander, or ridicule. 

CARL SCHURZ 

As representative of the best types contributed by Germans in American 
politics, three names appear pre-eminent, those of Carl Schurz, Francis Lieber, 
and Gustav Koerner. All of these lived during the great national crisis of 
the Civil War. The Hfe of Carl Schurz has been told in his own three-volume 
memoirs, and his life work is well presented in the six-volume edition of his 
speeches and memoirs, edited by Frederic Bancroft. The first great service 
of Carl Schurz in American politics was his brilliant public speaking in opposi- 
tion to the particularism of sovereign states, and the barbarism and dangers of 
the institution of slavery. Carl Schurz opened a new line of attack against 
slavery, not in the manner of native orators, who rang the changes on outraged 
humanity, or appealed to that sacrosanct document, the American Constitution, 
but he pointed to the economic decline of the Southern states in comparison 
with the sound economic condition of the North based on free labor. He 
appealed more to the intelligence than to the emotions or prejudices of his 
hearers. He spoke equally well in English and in German, drew great audi- 
ences in Boston and New York as easily as in Wisconsin, he was one of the 
most effective orators in the Lincoln campaign and a great factor in the victory 
of the Republican party in 1860. Appointed minister to Spain in recognition 
of his services, Schurz resigned at the outbreak of the war, in order to enter 
the Union army. He distinguished himself as a commander at the battle of 
Gettysburg and at Lookout Mountain. His oratorical powers were requisi- 
tioned in the campaign for the re-election of Lincoln. Immediately after the 
war he was sent to observe the condition of the South, and his report is a 
classic of contemporary history. Elected to the honor of membership in the 
United States Senate by the State of Missouri, Schurz was noted as one of 
the Senate's most brilliant orators, an uncompromising idealist, and a caustic 
critic. Schurz's next great achievement was his earnest effort in the interests 
of civil service reform. He was chosen by President Hayes as a member of 
his cabinet, receiving the post of Secretary of the Interior. In this position 
Schurz for the first time in American history carried out the principles of civil 
service reform. The standard of efficiency was the only one which kept a 
man under him in office, or removed him from it. Republicans and Democrats 
were treated alike. In carrying out this great principle Schurz incurred so 
much opposition and hostility in his own party that he killed himself politically. 
No public officer had ever dared to take this uncompromising stand. President 
Grant had shrunk from it, the next man brave enough to try the experiment of 
civil service reform, was Grover Cleveland. Schurz had driven in the wedge. 



but he suffered martyrdom for it. When he left the Cabinet, he was politically 
dead. Schurz was an independent in politics. Though one of the pillars of 
the Republican party in its earliest days, he turned against Grant for the second 
term, and subsequently supported Grover Cleveland with enthusiasm, with- 
drawing his support, however, at a later day, when the Democratic party 
identified itself with the free silver agitation. 

KOERNER AND LIEBER 

The life of Gustav Koerner is well documented in his two-volume memoirs. 
They furnish abundant evidence of the fact, well estabhshed by a number oi 
recent historical monographs, that the balance of power securing the election ol 
Lincoln, with all of its far-reaching consequences, lay with the German vote 
of the Middle West. Koerner's modesty and unselfishness were extraordinary. 
He repeatedly sacrificed his chance for political preferment in deference tc 
others less capable, and he surprised his political friends at the opening of the 
war by refusing high military rank, because he said he had not had the training 
needed for an officer. Koerner was elected lieutenant-governor of the State oi 
Illinois, 1853-1856, and in 1861 was appointed by Lincoln to succeec 
Schurz as minister to Spain. Koerner had the honor of being one of Lincoln's 
pallbearers, for few men in Illinois had been closer to the martyr presiden' 
before his election. 

Francis Lieber represents still another type. He was the scholar ir 
politics, an authority on international law, frequently consulted by Presiden 
Lincoln on questions concerning the rights of belligerents and neutrals. Oi 
the requisition of the President and General Halleck he prepared the "Cod< 
of War for the Government and Armies in the Field," which was adoptee 
for the Union armies and published as General Orders No. 1 00 of the Wa 
Department. This code has been characterized as a masterpiece by manj 
European publicists, and it suggested to Bluntschli his codification of the law 
of nations, Lieber's instructions appearing as an appendix to his "Moderne 
Volkerrecht." As professor of history and pohtical economy at South Carolin; 
College, Francis Lieber resided in Columbia, S. C, from 1835-1856, whei 
his anti-slavery views became a source of friction, and he left for the North 
He accepted a call to Columbia College in 1857. One of his sons, married ii 
the South, fought on the Confederate side, two other sons were in the Unioi 
army at the same time. 

Schurz, Koerner and Lieber represent at their best the ideaHsm, am 
independence, the honest, unselfish patriotism, and the intelligent action of thi 
Germans in American politics. Their existence in American politics has no 
been marked by the holding of many high offices, but on great national issue 
their presence has always been strongly felt. In the fact that they were no 
seeking anything for themselves lay their strength, their independence anc 
their power for good. The independent voter is the despair of the politiciai 
and the salvation of the country. 




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